Man plans to meet all his Facebook friends

BURLINGTON, Conn., March 14 (UPI) -- A Connecticut man said he raised $5,000 online to fund his trip to visit all 788 of his Facebook friends in person.

Ty Morin said the aim of his "Friend Request: Accepted" project, which he is funding with donations received on Kickstarter.com, "is to reconnect with people. No more hiding behind the screen of social media," CNN reported Thursday.

"Stop looking down at your phone and pretending you're texting your BFF when you walk by an old friend from high school. Let's get out there and remind people what it's like to have a face to face conversation with someone," Morin said on his Kickstarter page.

Morin said he plans to take a picture of each person performing an activity they love. He said he will use a classic 8x10 folding camera to take pictures, which will take extra time.

"The idea here isn't to get everyone in a room and fire off hundreds of pictures one after another. I want to sit down with everyone and witness what gets their blood pumping," he said.

United Press International is a leading provider of news, photos and information to millions of readers around the globe via UPI.com and its licensing services.

With a history of reliable reporting dating back to 1907, today's UPI is a credible source for the most important stories of the day, continually updated - a one-stop site for U.S. and world news, as well as entertainment, trends, science, health and stunning photography. UPI also provides insightful reports on key topics of geopolitical importance, including energy and security.

A Spanish version of the site reaches millions of readers in Latin America and beyond.

UPI was founded in 1907 by E.W. Scripps as the United Press (UP). It became known as UPI after a merger with the International News Service in 1958, which was founded in 1909 by William Randolph Hearst. Today, UPI is owned by News World Communications.